“No shit.”
“I try to warn people, but they never listen.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her too-slender waist. “They always want to know.”
Caine wrenched himself from his dark thoughts, belatedly noting Cassandra’s stark pallor and the bruises beneath her eyes.
He wasn’t the only one who’d had a nasty day.
Gently he cupped her face in his hands, acutely aware of the fine shiver that shook her body.
“What people?”
“Briggs would bring some to the church or cemetery above us and demand I share the visions. Others would pay him to come and visit his ‘seer’ in person.”
“God.” Caine thought back to when he’d supposedly been “blessed” with his vision. For the most part, the night remained lost in fog, no doubt Briggs’s doing, but he did have a clear memory of being in a vast, empty room. “I was blindfolded, but Briggs must have brought me to the church.”
“Yes.”
“Are the visions still with you?”
She bit her bottom lip, her expression troubled. “Yes.”
Caine grimaced, knowing she should be troubled.
For all his frantic need to be out of the caves with the wind on his face, he was beginning to realize the dangers of plucking Cassandra from the depths of obscurity.
A true seer was…
Fucking priceless.
Entire demon nations would go to war for the opportunity to gain control of her visions. Others would go to any lengths to kill her and bring an end to her ability to see into the future. After all, when you were plotting evil deeds, you didn’t want to have to worry they might show up, shining like a beacon, on some female’s wall.
And of course, there was no telling what the Commission would do to her.
The mystical Oracles who ruled the demon world might decide she was beneath their notice, or they might make her disappear. Cassandra wouldn’t be the first demon with rare powers to be isolated from civilization for the safety of all.
And no one would dare try to save her from their prison.
At least no one with even a pea-size brain.
“Damn.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you want a list?” he muttered, moving the short space to take her chilled hand in his own. He would worry about keeping Cassandra safe once they managed to escape from their current disaster. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Now that, pet, is one hell of a question.”
With Viper’s extensive automobile collection at his disposal, Salvatore decided on the sleek red-and-black Alfa Romeo. It would have made more sense to take a Hummer or Land Rover, but Salvatore enjoyed tweaking the nose of the vamps. He didn’t doubt that Viper would be pacing the floor until Salvatore returned his precious baby to his underground garage.
Plus, he couldn’t deny the satisfaction of roaring through the Chicago streets in the elegantly engineered machine. He was a Were who enjoyed the finer things in life.
No, not just the finer things.
The very finest.
His gaze slid to Harley’s profile as she watched the passing scenery flow from Midwest suburbia to clusters of warehouses, and then finally, flat farmland.
Smug pleasure settled in his heart.
His protective instincts might howl at the thought of deliberately taking his mate into danger, but a greater part of him understood that this was how it was meant to be. As mates, the two of them were stronger together than apart.
Besides, she had made an irrefutable point.
The Queen of Weres was not an empty title.
Harley would be judged as much on her strength and ability to protect the packs as her skill in leadership. The Weres respected power, and there would be no sympathy for her inability to shift, or the years she’d been held captive by Caine.
She would have to earn their loyalty.
Not that he doubted for a minute that she would.
There was a ruthless strength in Harley that was hidden beneath her fragile beauty. Dio, she’d faced a demon lord, hadn’t she? Something that would have sent any other creature screaming in fear. She would rise to whatever challenge she might face.
Not to mention the fact that she was as stubborn as a mule.
Reluctantly easing off the accelerator, Salvatore slowed the car from light speed to a mere crawl, and forced his attention to their surroundings as he exited off the highway and onto the dirt road that had once led the faithful to the forgotten church.
In a wash of moonlight, the overgrown cemetery slumbered, seemingly undisturbed for decades. His gaze traveled over the wrought-iron gate that hung open, no longer bothering to protect the bodies that had long ago turned to dust. Behind the fence, the broken marble statues and crumbling mausoleums peeped through the weeds, as if refusing to concede total defeat.
Just beyond the graveyard loomed the abandoned church, the once grand structure now an empty shell of stone and decaying wood.
He halted the car behind a patch of trees. The entire neighborhood was vacant, but humans were always straying where they didn’t belong. The sight of the expensive car in the middle of nowhere would stir the kind of attention he hoped to avoid.
At his side, Harley shook her head in wry resignation. “It looks like an abandoned set for a Rob Zombie horror flick.”
“Briggs never did have any taste.” Salvatore shook his head in disgust. “He’s the sort who gives werewolves a bad name.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of taste that gives werewolves a bad name,” Harley said, shoving open her door and climbing out of the car.
With a chuckle, Salvatore joined her at the side of the road.
“True,” he agreed. “Maybe I should hire a good PR firm.”
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “You love knowing that the demon world quakes in fear when a werewolf enters their territory.”
Salvatore couldn’t argue. Being the biggest, baddest, predator in the room had its benefits.
“It does tend to avoid confusion,” he said smugly.
“Everyone knows you’re the king, and everyone must bow before you?”
“Something like that.”
“Good God,” she muttered, flicking her gaze over his expensive suit and Italian loafers. Hunting or not, he liked to look good. “You were arrogant before you came into your full powers. Now you’re going to be impossible.”
He bent his head to capture her lips in a swift, possessive kiss.
“Not when I have a beautiful queen who is always eager to keep me humble,” he husked against her mouth.